The Authenticity Experiment, the power edition. It used to be like an electric shock that hit me all at once. Let me explain. When I still lived at home with my parents, my mother went on an ironing strike. I mean, I don’t really know if she deliberately struck, I just know that one day I noticed that she refused to iron my father’s shirts and handkerchiefs, the linen table clothes, and the embroidered and…
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Let me just say, I know it’s been silent here, or rather, I’ve been silent. In my electronic filing cabinet sit about 15 half-started posts and several finished ones that will never see the light of day. Because as much as I try to live authentically, not all stories receive an audience. I write some stories simply to get them out of my body. Stories of heartache and heart break. Stories of anger and agony. …
The Authenticity Experiment, the Whistling Man Edition. For the record, I didn’t tell him he was making me insane. As in bat shit crazy. That his relatively tuneless whistling was impeding my work, affecting my friendships, pulling at the edges of my already frayed knot. I just said, “Hey, I’m Kate. I’m a writer who lives down the block. Will you talk to me about your whistling?” He set down his pipe full of pot—after…
The Authenticity Experiment, the make America great again edition? That’s right, a question mark. Because I wonder what America we’re trying to make great again. Is it the America where the trains still ran and coal provided good jobs for people? Is it the America where one generation could succeed, economically-speaking, better than the one before? (Because, really, that one typically only happened for white people.) Is it the America that’s been sold to us…
The Authenticity Experiment, the bird edition. Last year in February, a few days after my birthday, I saw Stupid F#*@ing Bird at Portland Center Stage. I knew nothing about the play and expected a riff on Portlandia, but the play was a deconstruction and reimagining of Chekhov’s, “The Seagull.” I thought the play did such a fine job of capturing the complexity of human relationships and the mystery of the human heart, and the other…
Buy a pre-sale copy of The Authenticity Experiment: Lessons From the Best & Worst Year of My Life and send me a copy of the receipt to kate at katecarrolldegutes dot com and I’ll send you one of the new chapters as a thank you gift. Now back to our regularly scheduled programming. ∞ The Authenticity Experiment, the dead people’s mail edition. The thing about dead people is that they still receive mail—lots and lots of…
Here’s an infomercial before the post. The Authenticity Experiment: Lessons From the Best & Worst Year of My Life is available for pre-sale. It helps me if you order early and order often. The book launches September 12th. Now back to our regularly scheduled programming. ∞ The Authenticity Experiment, the trust edition. I am in a straw bale house on the edge of a canyon at the end of a road. Literally on the edge of…
The Authenticity Experiment, the other edition. You probably are too young to remember it. Or maybe you didn’t live in Portland then. Or maybe I am just making assumptions about who you are, how old you are, how long you’ve been in Portland (where the young go to retire). But there was a bad time here. I mean, afraid to walk to your black Ford Ranger pickup in the dark bad time. I mean, triple…
The Authenticity Experiment, the Western Weekend Edition. As a kid, I went to Western Weekend in rural Marin County, in a town without a stoplight or a sit-down McDonald’s. I didn’t ride the Ferris Wheel because the swinging cars gave me crawl up and a fear that I’d flip out—literally and figuratively—and plummet to my death. Strangely, though, I did ride the Zipper, me alone in a car. A blue one, I think, but that…
The Authenticity Experiment, the what is wrong with the world edition. I want to scream. I want to cry. I want to hit the first bespoke-suited 50-something white man I see. And I’ve been crying and ranting consistently, ever since I read that the Trump administration wants to cut funding to Meals on Wheels. The paltry $3 million that the organization receives each year to feed 2.4 million senior citizens. I know that $3 million sounds…